5/9 Minner — is sick :(

MinnerPip

MinnerPip

Member
Hi everyone. I’m a little lost about what has happened, but it seems we are transitioning to a new site ??

I had not posted in a while, but continue to keep Minner’s sheet populated. We’re having a bit of a scare today with diarrhea and some vomiting right after her 2nd bout of diarrhea. So I rushed her over to vet. Kind of freaking out — how do you give insulin if kitty loses appetite and vomits?? I manage her curve daily with food. I wish I didn’t have to, and hope I can get her to a dose where she is stable and consistent. Dare to dream.

Don’t think its pancreatitis. Gave her cerenia injection. Started her on metronidazole. Her PM shot was late tonight by almost 2 hours. She has no interest in her normal paternal low carb food. I let her have a tiny bit of fancy feast shredded chicken which is 10-12% carb range … just to see if she will eat if it becomes critical and she lapped on it. So I’m going to try to run her higher than normal (but not too high) until we get past whatever this is …. She regularly hits nadirs in 60-70s, sometimes 50s …. And if she won’t eat then those nadirs are concerning.

Anyone have experience with metronidazole? Any advice for this situation? I’m in foreign territory as Minner hasn’t been sick really, like ever. Insulin was the first prescription medication ever taken. This metronidazole is her first medication to be taken by mouth. I have taken care of kitties my whole life, but Minner is first diabetic and now she is sick and there are all these challenges to manage. Sigh.
 
Hi Laura,

Glad you've found us.

I'm so sorry to hear the Minner is unwell!! I don't have any advice to offer, but I'm keeping you both in my thoughts and hope you get to the bottom (and the end ) of whatever is happening, soon. Has Minner had P-itis before? What makes you think this is not that? I would let her eat whatever her heart desires as long as she's eating--but that's me. Someone else here with more expertise might disagree. But you need to keep her eating, right??
 
Liquid Flagyl (metronidazole) tastes nasty and there's no way to mask the taste. I get it compounded into capsules and just mix the contents into food. You can ask the vet about that.

Do you have an appetite stimulant? MIrtazapine or something like FortiFlora?
 
Hi Laura, I’m so sorry to hear that Minner is not feeling well.
Here is info on Pancreatitis, just in case.

Info - A Primer On Pancreatitis | Feline Diabetes Message Board - FDMB

I just went through our first round of pancreatitis in February with Ivy so I was very unfamiliar with any of the signs but there’s a lot of people who have gone through it. It seems to be pretty common with diabetic cats.

You definitely want to keep them eating, whatever that takes and whatever they will eat, even if you have to syringe feed to get them to eat.
As for the diarrhea, I used S. Boulardii plus Animal Essentials Colon Rescue, which I think helped.
https://a.co/d/h4RMmxT
I know Chewy carries it too.

Here is information on that, too.
How to Use S boulardii for diarrhea

You may need mirtazipine to get her to eat, it’s transdermal and you rub on the ear pinna 1 x daily. Plus pain meds (buprenorphine from the vet) if it’s truly pancreatitis. And Cerenia, possibly ondansetron for nausea (human med and is inexpensive from regular pharmacy).

Hoping Minner feels much better 🙏❤️‍🩹
Please keep us posted.
 
The FDMB forum went down and Tim (maybe Pookey helped) created this temp forum so we could still get advice.

So sorry about Minner, that's a lot to deal with. I can't give dosing advice, hopefully someone can stop by and advise. If you need a break to deal with Minner's other issues, you can always skip and treat it as a fur shot.
 
Mary & Jude said:
Hi Laura,

Glad you've found us.

I'm so sorry to hear the Minner is unwell!! I don't have any advice to offer, but I'm keeping you both in my thoughts and hope you get to the bottom (and the end ) of whatever is happening, soon. Has Minner had P-itis before? What makes you think this is not that? I would let her eat whatever her heart desires as long as she's eating--but that's me. Someone else here with more expertise might disagree. But you need to keep her eating, right??
Click to expand...
Thanks Mary. She has never had pancreatitis. The vet ran bloodwork and said everything looked perfect. I guess there are a couple bloodwork items that would likely be abnormal with pancreatitis … amylase(?)

She is refusing her FF pates. And the tiki stix which are all low carb. She initially lapped on FF shredded but wont now. What she will do is wolf down the cat man doo freeze dried chicken. I usually only sprinkle it on top of pates b/c i think it being so dry it can get stuck and make her cough but I’m letting her eat it tonight. She was slightly dehydrated and they gave her subq fluid but i need her to eat wet food for moisture. Sigh. Given she is a large girl, i am going to have to let her eat whatever she wants if this doesnt improve tomorrow … given the whole hepatic lipidosis risk of overweight cats not eating for a few days.

She is wearing me out.
 
SqueeM3 said:
Liquid Flagyl (metronidazole) tastes nasty and there's no way to mask the taste. I get it compounded into capsules and just mix the contents into food. You can ask the vet about that.

Do you have an appetite stimulant? MIrtazapine or something like FortiFlora?
Click to expand...
They dispensed it in pills, and gave her the first one while in their office. It’s a qtr pill every 12 hours. So the plan is for me to poke it down her throat. Given she has never had to take medication orally this is going to be super fun. She is going to pitch an absolute fit. In fact it may not work.

I have some Mirataz I can rub on her ear but I wasn’t sure if I should. It seems like she is suddenly being very picky about what she is willing to eat.
 
MinnerPip said:
Thanks Mary. She has never had pancreatitis. The vet ran bloodwork and said everything looked perfect. I guess there are a couple bloodwork items that would likely be abnormal with pancreatitis … amylase(?)

She is refusing her FF pates. And the tiki stix which are all low carb. She initially lapped on FF shredded but wont now. What she will do is wolf down the cat man doo freeze dried chicken. I usually only sprinkle it on top of pates b/c i think it being so dry it can get stuck and make her cough but I’m letting her eat it tonight. She was slightly dehydrated and they gave her subq fluid but i need her to eat wet food for moisture. Sigh. Given she is a large girl, i am going to have to let her eat whatever she wants if this doesnt improve tomorrow … given the whole hepatic lipidosis risk of overweight cats not eating for a few days.

She is wearing me out.
Click to expand...
Paws crossed this inappetence, D, and vomiting are short-lived. I'm SO glad it's not p-itis. I think you're wise to give her what she'll eat. Keeping you both in my thoughts...
 
Staci & Ivy said:
Hi Laura, I’m so sorry to hear that Minner is not feeling well.
Here is info on Pancreatitis, just in case.

Info - A Primer On Pancreatitis | Feline Diabetes Message Board - FDMB

I just went through our first round of pancreatitis in February with Ivy so I was very unfamiliar with any of the signs but there’s a lot of people who have gone through it. It seems to be pretty common with diabetic cats.

You definitely want to keep them eating, whatever that takes and whatever they will eat, even if you have to syringe feed to get them to eat.
As for the diarrhea, I used S. Boulardii plus Animal Essentials Colon Rescue, which I think helped.
https://a.co/d/h4RMmxT
I know Chewy carries it too.

Here is information on that, too.
How to Use S boulardii for diarrhea

You may need mirtazipine to get her to eat, it’s transdermal and you rub on the ear pinna 1 x daily. Plus pain meds (buprenorphine from the vet) if it’s truly pancreatitis. And Cerenia, possibly ondansetron for nausea (human med and is inexpensive from regular pharmacy).

Hoping Minner feels much better 🙏❤️‍🩹
Please keep us posted.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much Staci. My vet did not think its pancreatitis but i guess only time will tell. I went ahead and ordered the probiotic and the slippery elm/licorice liquid you referenced. I do have some Mirataz and I will use that tomorrow if we don’t see improvement.
 
Seth&Bell said:
The FDMB forum went down and Tim (maybe Pookey helped) created this temp forum so we could still get advice.

So sorry about Minner, that's a lot to deal with. I can't give dosing advice, hopefully someone can stop by and advise. If you need a break to deal with Minner's other issues, you can always skip and treat it as a fur shot.
Click to expand...
Thank you Seth. Hope you and Bell are doing well. Will check her sheet here soon to see what has been up!
 
Metronidazole pills taste awful too. I put them in a gel cap and was careful not to touch the outside of the capsule . It can take away the appetite from past experience. The couple of times I gave it my cats did not have an infection. My vet said when there was a formed stool to stop it and not be surprised if the cats skipped a couple days after that. Vibes to Minnet.
 
Welcome to the back up forum we are using until we can get the original up and working again. Sorry to hear Minner isn't feeling well.

You need to get the extra Spec fPL test to know if it's pancreatitis or not (or an ultrasound). It's not part of the regular blood work you'd get. I've had a couple kitties that never had pancreatitis, until they did - one being Neko. 🙁 Diarrhea or soft stool is not uncommon. Lack of appetite is very common or being picky. It can be a sign of nausea. If the Cerenia is not working, I'd try to get some ondansetron too. You can give both. The pain relief is very important. I've from several people who have had pancreatitis that it is very painful.

Metronidazole can also upset the tummy biome. You might want to get some probiotics for sweet Minner.

As far as dosing goes, I gave Neko full dose if I could get 2/3 of her food in her. I'd resort to assist feeding if needing, and even used higher carb LC if I needed that safety margin. You may or may not need to lower the dose. The inflammation (if that's what it is) could raise her numbers. Pancreatitis is a cause of insulin resistance.
 
Thanks Wendy. It’s frustrating that the vet didn’t suggest the Spec fPL. The whole point of drawing blood was to perform any possible blood tests now so I would not need to bring her back in again to draw blood if she didn’t improve. I will take her back today to get them to do what they should have done yesterday. They did do an xray and said her GI tract was pretty empty, no enlarged organs, no masses.

She is willing to eat higher carb stuff. She had no delay eating hartz bisque kitten, which is balanced food but high carb. Her BG jumped. It was 123 when I got up, then jumped to 155 within the hour after offering her various foods and pilling her. Then shot her dose and let her finish the hartz bisque pouch, was 183 thirty minutes post shot.

It seems right now the only way i’m going to get her to get enough calories is to offer her higher carb food.
 
Leroy is recovering from p-itis right now. You can look at our condos. There's a Snap FPLI test that can give a result in 10 minutes.

Try using Pill Pockets or other pill dough to get the pills in easier. Roll in FortiFlora or crushed up treats. Dry pilling is hard and there's a chance the pill can get stuck in the throat where it will dissolve and cause irritation. Leroy's pills are smushed into one of civvie's NV Raw Bites.
 
SqueeM3 said:
Leroy is recovering from p-itis right now. You can look at our condos. There's a Snap FPLI test that can give a result in 10 minutes.

Try using Pill Pockets or other pill dough to get the pills in easier. Roll in FortiFlora or crushed up treats. Dry pilling is hard and there's a chance the pill can get stuck in the throat where it will dissolve and cause irritation. Leroy's pills are smushed into one of civvie's NV Raw Bites.
Click to expand...
I coated her pill in cream cheese!! It was the only thing I had on hand that I thought would prevent the bitter taste from touching her tongue and then the drooling happening. It was not easy to pill her but it worked, no evidence that any bitter taste was detected. Whew. Hope i can do this 10 more times over next 5 days.
 
MinnerPip said:
I coated her pill in cream cheese!! It was the only thing I had on hand that I thought would prevent the bitter taste from touching her tongue and then the drooling happening. It was not easy to pill her but it worked, no evidence that any bitter taste was detected. Whew. Hope i can do this 10 more times over next 5 days.
Click to expand...
I used to hide pills in a liver cream cheese pate I would make and keep in the freezer to have on hand. Consistency like thick peanut butter so you can roll it. Added nutrients, super stinky which they need when they don't feel well, and they never hesitated!

Hope she feels better soon! I love her pic. 🥰
 
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